How to Do Things: Making a Skirt Out of a Scarf

Being thrifty, I like to wear clothing articles in different ways and in as many unique outfits as possible, so I can get the most bang for my buck. Because of this, I was intrigued when I saw this pin, which you may have seen before:

Image via pinterest

Now, when I first saw it, I honestly doubted that it would work. I mean, come on, can the skirt even stay up?! And then the pintester tried it. As you can see here, the draped skirt did not really work for her. Suddenly, I was even more doubtful in the credibility of this pin.

Then in late May, another blog I read, "a pair & a spare" tried a very similar version of this skirt and she looked adorable in it. Here is her tutorial featured on another website and here is her wearing it on her blog. Oh, so you tie it and it stays! Ok, that seems reasonable. Immediately, I decided to try it. And now two months later, I am actually trying it. Sometimes life gets busy. And, sometimes it takes a storm to ruin your errands run and give you enough free time to try making a skirt out of a scarf and take photos for your blog.

1. Hold the scarf like a towel and you are about to dry yourself off. (If you were going to wear this out, you probably would not want to wear shorts under it, I just did not want the world to see my undergarments.)

1.5. You should not be exactly in the middle. Turns out, it works better if one side of the scarf reaches to the side of your hip and does not make it around to your bum. The other side of the scarf needs enough fabric to reach around as far as possible.

2. Wrap one side around. Preferably, there will not be so much extra fabric. Ideally, the edge of the scarf will hit between your front and your bum.

3. Take the other side of the scarf, bring it around the front and twist it a half turn (so the side that was facing towards your body before will now face out).

4. Cross the front around to the back and tuck it in. Or tie it. Mine was not long enough to tie.

5. If you cannot tie the scarf into a skirt, make sure you tuck all of the scarf edge into the back of the skirt. Or it will look like this, and it looks pretty silly. 

This is what the final product looks like. It does not look great and is fairly loose. Ironing would probably help. You may not be able to tell here (or you maybe you can), but where the skirt hits on my body also makes my stomach look larger than normal (that could just be me; I typically wear high-waisted bottoms so I am not used to how I look with a skirt on my hips). I decided to try again, making it as tight as possible and starting at my natural waist instead of my hips.

This is what it looks like when I redid it. (I'm sorry that this picture is so blurry.)

I decided to test the skirt's ability to not fall down. This is what it looks like after sitting and standing up again. As you can see, my shorts are noticeable at the bottom, which means the skirt rode up. 

I pulled the skirt back down and then tried walking up and then downstairs again. My shorts are sticking out a little. (And, apparently, my hands are permanently attached to my hips.)

All in all, yes, the scarf skirt stayed on my body, but I had to pull it down. I do not think that I am brave enough to try wearing it in public without shorts (or at all). Possibly, ironing would help prevent the skirt from riding up. Or maybe a different fabric? Maybe if it were wider or longer? If you have tried the draped scarf skirt (or you decide to give it a try now, or in several months like I did), how did it work for you? Let me know!

Have a great rest of your week, it is halfway over!

Rachel Cathleen